Recent Tasting Notes

aw yisss. this was left forgotten in my last (?) sipsby box. I had to cancel that subscription bc I was in TOODEEP and was drowning in samples. this was another box that was brought to work, where it has been sitting in a drawer that is never opened….which is a SHAME because this is all grape-y, malty, bread-y goodness. it is exactly what I needed on this slow day, when all I want/need is to go home and nap for five hours. or however long Percy will left me sleep before she starts yelling in my face for her treats.

SPEAKING OF PERCY, since it’s been quite a while since I’ve updated here….not that anyone is particularly interested in my cat..but, I’m gonna write about her anyway. Percy started having seizures a few months back, I casually mentioned this to my sister (who I rehomed Percy from) and she was like “yeah, she had seizures here too” and like, uh, that is something that MAYBE she should have mentioned before, because I was (obviously) very concerned about what in our home/environment might have caused the seizures. and it actually made me really upset, bc the original plan for Percy, before I took her in, was that she was going to be rehomed from my sister’s place to the FARM where my brother-in-law found her two years prior (the farm belongs to his family). before Christmas. when it’s COLD outside. two vet visits later and they think she has idiopathic epilepsy, which I would need to go out of town to confirm (no one in town has the ability to do the tests required). this is something that I want to do later this year, but for now I am keeping her unmedicated and am recording any seizures in a notebook so that I can tell her vet about them. I worry about the medication because it is potentially a life-long thing and she is so young, plus it could compromise her kidneys. she would have to go in every six months to do bloodwork….for the rest of her life, basically. she doesn’t have seizures everyday or anything. it’s about 3 a month, which is on the verge of where the vet would want her to be medicated. other than the seizures, which she seems unfazed by, Percy has started to come out of her shell quite a bit and has a hilarious personality. it’s so nice to see her being so sassy, even while still being pretty skittish. I’ve been contemplating getting her a cat-friend because I think it would improve her quality of life….so we’ll see about that!

Oh no, people are definitely interested in your cat! I’ve never dealt with a cat having seizures; I hope there isn’t anything wrong and that she doesn’t need to go on medication. Also, cat friends are awesome and they must help with boredom, even if they aren’t the best of friends!

I haven’t either! I learned that seizures aren’t treated in cats as often as with dogs. I’m hoping for more studies about giving cats cbd oil will pop up, bc that sounds like something that could potentially be beneficial…but there’s not really much information about it and I’m weirdly obsessive about needing ALL the information. WEIRDLY though, a co-worker has a cat that has seizures as well, she said that as her cat has gotten older, the fewer seizures that she has, which is interesting.

and yes!! I think cats are better in pairs! it’s just about finding the Right One (I actually have a list of things to think about while looking, hahaha. :-/)

Someone else mentioned a raisin tea, and I was trying to think of raisin teas around here. I had this one in my hand this morning! I must try this one soon!
Also, yes I want Percy updates! It’s terrible to hear what she is going through but awesome that she is adjusting better.

I really enjoy this tea. To me its very delicate, it again is a white tea, and acts the part as well. It also is a very forgiving brewer in my experience , giving consistent results time and time again. i like this one for a night tea, not super energizing , calming, and a good sipper. Very light in color, and in flavor, and mouth feel. It has a quality that makes you want to savor such a light tea, not drink it down, but that too is a very do-able thing. Light floral notes, and to me some woody notes in the background. This isn’t a mind blower by any means, just a good cup tea. You also can’t go wrong with the peeps at LRC. Awesome experience with all their teas, and teawares. There is a personal touch to everything they do.

Preparation

This tea to me as well is responsible for waking the tea head in me. This is just a very comforting tea. I feel like it isn’t the most forgiving tea to brew. It will brew strong and dry, and I have found that brewing with a bit cooler water, helps bring out the malty, honey sweetness of the tea.

Preparation

OK looseTman, I finally had this without eating something distracting. My initial thoughts in the earlier review remain pretty much intact. The dry leaf smells fresh with tobacco leaf notes. As I poured I did notice a bit of barnyard this time. It is not present in the sip. The taste is light and clean. It is a nice simple everyday shou. What stood out today without strong food accompaniment was the cooling feeling afterwards.

Interesting, I never read LRCT’s description. I did not notice vanilla that they mention. Then again notes are often subjective. All I had was a sample size or I would just send some to you.

I used about 3g of leaf. Reading other’s notes on Steepster I am under the impression it is more typical to use 5-10g. I used boiling water and steeped a couple minutes in a quasi-western style. I didn’t set a timer. I went more by color than time. I like it orangeish like typical black tea.

Will it steep 6 times? No idea. I steep 12 oz at a time. I know it will go twice and probably at least 3.

LRCT isn’t out to blow your mind. They aim more towards satisfying everyday needs. I think they succeed at this on everything I have sampled from them. Hope this helps.

Thanks for your reply and kind offer. However, your a very experienced reviewer and your tasting notes are very thorough.

Knowing you used about 3g of leaf in 12oz for a couple minutes is very helpful. FRIW, LRCT suggests 2tsp or 4g /cup, 210F, 4min. So that may account for the light cup.
Agreed, RE LRCT’s aim to satisfy everyday needs. It’s also very helpful to know they acheive it. Thanks!

This is just a cursory review for now. Woke up this morning and realized I forgot to get milk last night. So instead of a matcha/milk latte, I’m having poo. I also had a bowl of brown sugar and maple oatmeal. The oatmeal kind of overpowered the tea. What I can tell you is the leaf had no fishy or otherwise offensive odors. It smelled sweet, clean, and leafy. Once brewed I checked again and no barnyard. It does have a pleasant shou aroma. The taste was clean and mild. It was probably sweet but after the oatmeal who knows. There was a mild amount of leathery notes. All in all, this seems to be a good everyday simple tea.

I started my day with my usual matcha and cold milk. I went out on the porch to enjoy the peace of the early morning. The birds were happy. The bugs were making their sounds in the distance. Beautiful start. I finished mu tumbler and decided it was just a little chilly – mid 60’s F. Went i and prepared a big mug of Yunnan Black. I poured it into an empty RTD glass bottle (I keep some around for just such times), and went back outside. What a perfect fit for my morning!

The warmth of the tea warmed my insides until the sun began heating the air. The tea has no hint of bitterness. There is a slight dryness. Mostly this is honey and malt. Today I am catching notes I hadn’t noticed previously with this one. I’m catching warm baked dark bread flavors. This is nicely sweet but can handle a little extra added sweetness if you desire. Just a lovely little porch sitting tea.

This tea was sent to me by Little Red Cup and is the reason I have come out of tea note retirement. I love Yunnan tea. Assam is great when I need to wake up. Ceylon I like with flavors and is my base of choice for Earl Grey. Yunnan is my warm cozy slow down tea.

The leaf looks just like the picture. It is long thin light twists of gold and browns. I pretty much expect the leaf to look this way. What I did not expect, in addition to the malty, honey, scents, is a fruitiness that resembles grapes and a neat pepperiness.

I Brewed this strong (on purpose) and the cup is a deep reddish hue as opposed to the amber mentioned by LRC. The taste matches the aroma perfectly. There is a touch of dryness that may disappear if you don’t make it so strong.

It is a dreary rainy day here, and this Yunnan black is providing just the comfort I need.

It is fall already. Where did summer go? We are getting some really cool nights and some awesome warm days with very low humidity. The leaves are turning. This made me crave white peony. I don’t know if others feel this way but white peony just feels fall to me. It tastes dark but feels light. The leaf on this one is very lovely and smells like fall with touches of honey and melon thrown in. The brew is honey colored and just goes with the sunshine. The taste is pronounced for a white tea. Of course light by assam standards. It is deep woods leafy with honey drizzled lightly on top. While it has a natural sweetness it isn’t overly sweet. A really nice example of the type.

I hope all of you are experiencing the same awesomely beautiful weather we are enjoying. Not a cloud in the sky. This morning I decided to completely forget all the stuff that I am supposed to be doing. Instead I got out my gorgeous Tivelasi teapot and filled it with Little Red Cup Lapsang Souchong. Grabbed the accompanying mug and a bowl of grits and parked myself on the front porch. It was so peaceful. No traffic. The sound of faint hammering across the road – the neighbors are building a barn for their horses. The sweet pine smoke from the tea along with the gentle warm breeze simply melted the stress away. The perfect early morning porch tea. Highly recommend you start your day the same way.

It was 53 this morning when I started outside with my cold matcha latte. Opted to stay in until it warmed up a little. Later I brewed a hot cup of lapsang souchong and began to play Kerbal Space Program. Today’s agenda was to launch a satellite to orbit Mun and look for locations on the moon with resources to build a refinery. Except, my early satellites tumbled out of control during ascent. My redesign made Mun orbit then proceeded to blow up for no good reason. Decided I was done destroying things up for the day. Grabbed the cup of LS and tried for the porch again. It was 68. Close enough. The LS was cool by this time. Didn’t care. It smells like BBQ but doesn’t taste that way. It is nicely sweet but not bacon or meat tasting. The smoke is at a stout but pleasant level. No ashes or ashtray here. Just pleasant sweet pine smoke.

I am jealous of 53! I was happy that it was 68 when I went out to feed the chickens so I pulled up a chair and stayed to watch them eat and watch the babies play! Maybe that cool air will head my way soon.

This is a good solid everyday workhorse tea. It isn’t going to blow you away but it does the job. It appears to be very forgiving as to leafing and steep time. Perfect for early morning when you can’t be trusted with measuring or telling time. For those who like to be jolted awake, this might not be your tea. I prefer a more subtle wake up. There is no bitterness. I didn’t notice any dryness. What I got was cup that tastes dark, sweet, and leafy. I noticed some mild notes of smoke underneath (very mild). It should take milk or sugar well – though I tried neither. It should also work nicely iced. Your friends who don’t get your tea obsession would recognize this as tea.

I remember when smokey teas used to freak me out a little bit, but that was quite awhile back, and I’ve grown accustomed to them, and I enjoy them. I don’t drink them often, lets just say I go through phases with them, but in an effort to drink my way through my entire cupboard once a month (it will probably never happen, LOL, but every month I start off optimistically thinking that I can), I’m making more of an effort this week to drink a cup or 2 of each of my smokey black teas, this one included.

How does this one measure up? Well, I didn’t do any kind of comparison between this one & the other 4 in my collection, so for now I’ll just say that it’s tasty. It is definitely thick with pine smoke, but also has a sweetness too it, more of a fruit taste, as opposed to the caramelized brown sugar taste that I get with some, and I’m grateful that the tea is packaged within a ziplock bag, as well as the other packaging, because it’s deeply aromatic, as a lapsang should be, & I probably should move it into one of my many empty tins, but I love the picture on the front of little red cup’s package. Maybe I’ll cut the package up & attach it to the outside of a tin…

Good morning! I probably should be out in the garden by now, there is so much to do, but I’m enjoying a good breakfast & tea first. My tea drinking habits have changed somewhat recently. It started with the sip down extravaganza, drinking up all the teas that were one cup samples (mostly from Sil, LOL). Then I started working on teas that I didn’t have much of, & teas that have been in my cupboard for awhile. In the old days I’d drink several different teas in a day, but lately I’ve been slowing down a bit, choosing one tea & drinking it all day, either steep & resteep or gongfu, or whatever. So I’ve actually been drinking this one all week, LOL. It’s not the only tea I’ve had all week, but it’s been my breakfast tea since Monday, and sometimes my afternoon tea as well. Why? I have no idea. It’s hard to pinpoint. I wanted to write a review about it, but my allergies are affecting my tastebuds & sense of smell, so it’s hard to define those elements right now. What I can say is that although it’s not a fancy tea or whatever, I’m enjoying it this week. Things I like: it has a robust quality to it, a satisfying feeling. I’ve drank it several ways. The suggestion was to use 1 tsp x 3 – 5 min. That was not very satisfying, rather bland actually. I bumped it up to 2 tsp & gave it 5 minutes, & it becomes a cup that I can really get behind in the morning. Not fancy, just solid. A hint of smoke & toasted brown sugar, a full mouth, kind of like a Qimen, but with a hint of shu thrown in, just a little of that earthy compost taste. I think I’ll finish my cup & get to work!

This company has a really affordable sampler, so I decided to try a few of its teas, and well… I’m finding this one fairly bland in a Twinings sort of way. Disappointing because I really want to like this company’s tea. I like their website and general approach, but eh… I would not buy this again.

I’ve had this one a couple times but now it’s time for it to journey off to other ppl. It falls into that category of boring water for me. there’s a bit of a sweetness here, but nothing really out there that makes me want to keep this around

last tea of the evening and i have to say that i bought this one in part because it was a large amount for a reasonable price (even as a sample size) but also because i was curious as to what the flowers would taste like. Mostly i just wanted to try an interesting, different experience. Sadly i was very distracted when i had this, and all i can really say is that it’s more like a white/green sort of tea but i DID drink it all up, relatively quickly heh more to come when i try it again!

Final Count: 72 YES! mwahahaha sipdown count for 2014 achieved… not that i’ll be making it to my next goal unless i decide to do 5 teas over 2 month periods…since i’m going to keep pushing for 50 teas heh

Cup from this morning – i vastly prefer little red cup’s keemun that they no longer carry but this one isn’t bad. it’s just not great, and there are a bunch of other teas out there, that i think i’d have first.

Another from yesterday – I’ve got the travelling tea box arriving tonight so i’ve been trying to focus on some of my larger quantity teas lately since i know the box will bring lots of sampling. this one is quite nice, but it’s not their keemun. So sad that one is gone from their lineup.

Another tea from yesterday…all i really recall about this one is that it’s quite tasty. This is a great little company that doesn’t have a huge number of selections but their customer service is good, their packaging is fun and the teas that they DO have are really enjoyable. They had samples for us about a year ago on steepster and i tried them then…it’s taken me a while to place an order and sadly the keemun they had is no longer a tea they carry. So i picked this one up as well just to try it since i’d been so pleased with their keemun. I’m not disappointed! best of all their “sample” sizes are very generous ranging from .5os to 1.5 haha

Final Count yesterday: 78 (forgot to log these ones in to my cupboard..this does not bode well for my end of year goal…)